My partner's youger son is autistic , having been diagnosed when he was about 2. Both my partner and I have children from previous marriages, and I only met my partner's son , when he was around 4.
He has been assessed as high functioning , meaning that he was integrated into mainstream school, and coped pretty well. He also excelled at sport , running and rugby and seemed to integrate pretty well. He has good social skills, when he needs to us them, and to all intents and purposes could appear to a stranger to be a very charming and capable young man.
My partner, his Mother and I have seen a very different side to him, however, over the last few years. He is now 24 and has recently started a Masters in Physio at Cardiff University (something we are very proud of by the way). For the last year or so he has been living at home with us and prior to that was studying for his degree at Oxford Brooks.
Over this period we have had very little real contact with him. He never returns any messages to us whilst he has been away, and never contacts us. When he was at home he would pretty much blank us out , most of the time.
This, of course, is distressing for us but we do understand that his extra sensory overload in certain situations means he needs to shutdown. We are also think that he masks a lot when he is out, which we understand can be exhausting when he gets home.
As he is now away in Cardiff we are concerned about how long lack of contact will be . More immediately we are getting married at the beginning of November and are not sure whether he will attend.
We also , often find it impossible to fine out about how he is getting on, as phoning the University , for example, often gets us nowhere because they won't divulge anything, as he's an adult.
It can lead you to feeling quite helpless. Any advice would be welcome.
Richard